Pacific Gas and Electric Company: Smart Grid Annual Report- 2013

Author:

PACIFIC GAS AND ELECTRIC COMPANY

Year:

2013

Abstract:

As one of the earliest and largest adopters of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in North America—with nearly ten million electric and gas SmartMeters™ deployed across its 70,000 square-mile service area—Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is now leveraging this technology platform to prudently and methodically build the next-generation Smart Grid to meet the 21st century needs of its electric and gas customers. In its Smart Grid Deployment Plan approved by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC or Commission) in July 2013, PG&E stated that its vision for the Smart Grid was “to provide customers safe, reliable, secure, cost-effective, sustainable and flexible energy services through the integration of advanced communications and control technologies to transform the operations of our electric network, from generation to the customer’s premise.” This vision continues to guide PG&E’s Smart Grid program. In the coming years, PG&E’s customers will see many benefits from the Smart Grid. Some of these benefits include: the ability to lower energy bills by controlling energy use, the availability of pricing signals which will help customers save money by shifting their energy use to times of the day when energy prices are lower, and increased reliability of service, including faster outage detection, quicker restoration, and greater customer convenience resulting from faster response to service requests. PG&E has made steady progress on its Smart Grid Deployment Plan, always keeping its focus on meeting customer needs as summarized in this Annual Report, which covers the July 2012 through June 2013 time period.